1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printed circuit board unit including stacked solder or conductive bumps between a printed wiring substrate and a mounted component, and particularly, to an interposer or relay substrate interposed between the stacked conductive bumps.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A printed circuit board unit is well known to include a mounted component such as a ball grid array (BGA) device, for example. When the electric circuit generates heat in the printed circuit board unit, a heat or thermal stress is in general induced in the printed wiring substrate, made of a glass epoxy or polyimide resin, and the ceramic substrate of the BGA device. Since the printed wiring substrate made of resin and the ceramic substrate have different thermal expansion coefficients, the substrates usually suffer from a relative movement or shift along the surface of the printed wiring substrate due to the thermal expansion.
Such a relative movement between the printed wiring substrate made of resin and the ceramic substrate induces a shearing stress in solder bumps disposed between the printed wiring substrate and the ceramic substrate. The shearing stress may repeatedly be generated in the solder bumps in response to switching between on and off statuses of the electric circuit in the printed circuit board unit. The solder bumps may sometimes suffer from cracks when the shearing strain finally overcomes the strength of the solder bumps. The thus repeated and intermittent generation of the shearing stress is supposed to deteriorate the durability of the solder bumps.
It is conventionally known that a higher or taller solder bump leads to reduction in the shearing stress induced in the solder bump. A higher solder bump contributes to a broader distribution of the shearing stress, so that a smaller shearing stress can be defined within a horizontal cross-section of the solder bump. However, an increase in the height of a spherical solder bump or solder ball inevitably induces an increase in the width of the solder ball. A higher or taller solder ball in this manner is supposed to suffer from a smaller distribution density of the solder balls.
In view of the above-described disadvantage, it is proposed that solder bumps are vertically stacked on the printed wiring substrate below the mounted component. The stacked solder bumps are supposed to realize an increase in the height without increasing the width. In this proposal, the solder bumps and relay substrates are alternately stacked on one another on the printed wiring substrate. The relay substrate serves to connect the adjacent stacked solder bumps.
As disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 09-214088, for example, it is proposed that the thermal expansion coefficient of the relay substrate is set at an intermediate level between the thermal expansion coefficients of the printed wiring substrate and the mounted component. In this case, a shearing stress is equally distributed over the stacked solder bumps. Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 62-18049 still proposes to interpose a relay substrate in the form of a film having a smaller Young's modulus between the stacked solder bumps. The relay substrate is supposed to absorb a larger shearing stress.